


It's Been A Long, Long Time

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: The Stars Crossed Right [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Gen, Homesickness, M/M, Missions, Modern Bucky Barnes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Stream of Consciousness, Time Travel, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-04-03 17:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: Bucky is sent back in time, to 1944, and has to find a way to deal with being apart from Steve while staring him in the eye."“Open your eyes,” a third voice demands, humor lacing the words. Bucky does so, not sure when they closed in the first place. Right in front of him is Gabe Fucking Jones, a gun hoisted up and pointed right between Bucky’s eyebrows. At his sides are -- and Bucky’s brain literally cannot take it -- Dum Dum Dugan and...Steve. Holy shit, he thinks, mouth dropping open, eyes glued to his fiance.“He recognizes you, Cap,” Jim Goddamn Morita says from next to Dum Dum, gun up like Gabe’s. Dum Dum’s too, and even Steve. Bucky turns his head just a little, and yup, there’s Jacques Dernier next to Steve, which means Monty Falsworth is behind him. It only makes sense that Dernier and Falsworth also have their guns up, pointed at him. Also this means that Bucky was not sent to 2015, but probably fucking 1944."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from Harry James' post-WW2 song, It's Been A Long, Long Time. All the chapter titles will be lyrics from this song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Cali](calihart.tumblr.com) and [Nik](princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com) for their help betaing!!!

## September 15th, 2016

Tony calls Bucky in (at what feels like) very early in the morning, saying that it’s of the utmost importance. Bucky groans and complains but gets out of bed. He gives up his seat on the subway for a man with three kids, including one strapped on his chest, and ends up being the only person at his pole. He’s so tired that he rests his forehead on it, and almost misses his stop. With school and work and both of the cats feeling sick at the same time, as well as Peter calling at midnight despite it being a Thursday if he wanted anything from Delmar's Deli-Grocery (which is in Queens. Which is an hour long subway ride away), he’s tired.

Bucky is going to blame the headache he has now on Peter. He won’t blame it on the fact that there wasn’t enough time for him to get coffee, even though that makes more sense. But really, he thinks as he follows the crowd in the direction of the Tower, this is Tony’s fault. Bucky could’ve slept in this morning. He could’ve watched Steve come back from his run and oogled his chest and he could’ve called Steve over and had Steve in his lap --

Goddammit. Who knows how this morning could’ve gone if not for Tony calling him in at the ass crack of dawn.

Bucky sighs and rubs at his face, keeping an eye open so he won’t trip. He needs to get over his morning being ruined. Instead, he can look forward to tonight. He and Steve can have a nice time together, and Bucky’ll make sure it’s _nice_. It’s been too long since they got a whole night together.

Those thoughts, the plans he makes (would Steve blush if he put rose petals on the floor, leading to their bed? Or would he think about the clean up? There’s no telling with him) hold him over until he gets to the Tower, and up the elevator, too. It’s a long ride, but on the twenty second floor (food court), one of the secretaries, Jessie, gets on and they talk until she gets off on the eightieth floor (accountant floor). Bucky goes up to the one hundredth, which is Tony’s lab floor, and barely steps out before he’s being bombarded with Tony’s...Tony-ness.

“Bucky! Hey! Look, there’s something I need from you….” He grabs Bucky’s wrist, nodding quickly, and drags him to the back of the lab. Bucky passes at least three half-finished experiments or inventions or whatever Tony calls them. They haven’t been on the list of patents Tony’s needed, but it’s not wholy unusual for Bucky to not recognize them. That’s not always his job. Tony continues to talk, babbling about staying up for three nights with five hours of sleep stretched between them, because he had an idea and it couldn’t wait and it’ll change the _world_!

Bucky gets deposited in front of a big, metal coffin. It looks a lot like the drawing Steve made of the the big, metal coffin that he became a super soldier in. It’s freaky, to say the least.

“What’s that thing?” He asks Tony, shifting on his feet. He really hopes Tony doesn’t expect him to go _in it_ , because fuck that.

“It’s, well, it’s a time machine. And I know how much you love science and space, and I needed someone to test jump it, and I thought ‘why not my main man Bucky Barnes?’ So I called you in.”

Bucky’s not ashamed to say that his first reaction is annoyance. It doesn’t even hit him what Tony said until he’s blurted out, “Tony, are you fucking kidding me? I could’ve been having morning sex. Couldn’t this have waited, like, an hour?” Then it does hit him, and he yelps out, “Time travel? How?”

Tony stares at him for a moment, eyes glazing over just a bit. Then he blinks, comes back down to Earth, and waves his hand around. “It doesn’t matter, not yet. It won’t until I get this peer reviewed, actually.”

Bucky interrupts, “So, what, I’m the first test to see if it even works?”

“Not the _first_ test! I’m not an idiot. A very nice cat made it through just fine.”

There’s no telling where Tony got a cat. Withouting even thinking, Bucky says his first thought: “This isn't fucking Minutemen, Tony.”

“Minutemen? Isn’t that a DCOM or whatever they’re called? What do you and Steve do in your free time?”

Bucky doesn’t blush, no matter how much a small part of him wants to. “Steve wanted to get caught up completely. But that’s not the point -- what if I get sent -- wait, when am I being sent?”

Tony’s smirk is obvious as he says, “September fifteenth, twenty-fifteen. A year ago. You literally have to go, take a picture of the newspaper, and then come back.” He twists around, grabs a bracelet off one of the worktables. He shoves it at Bucky, who has to scramble to keep it from falling. “There’s a button on there that sends you back. It solar charges like your phone, except it takes a lot longer because, shockingly, bending time and space to your will needs more power than your phone does. So don’t press the button too soon or you’ll be stuck in twenty-fifteen and there’ll be two of you and it’ll be a big fucking mess.”

Bucky stares at it. There are lots of beads on it, and they all look like they could be the “button”. “Which one is it?”

Tony points, “That big red one. No, the other big red one. Jesus, don’t touch it! Your thumb print is what sets it off!” Bucky flinches so violently, it almost falls again. Tony lunges and grabs it just in time, then says, “Gimme your wrist. It actually, heh, it’s like one of those Life Alert bracelets. I can monitor your heartbeat through it.”

As he says the second part, Tony’s slipping it over Bucky’s wrist. Perfectly timed, a steady _thump-thump-thump_ ing fills the air around them. Bucky looks around but there seems to be no source of the sound, just like JARVIS. “Why would you need that?” He asks, gently twisting it around.

“Oh, just in case you have a heart attack while you’re jumping. It’s not likely, you’re pretty young, but I don’t know, Steve might stress you out more than you let on. Or your big dog.”

“Scout’s not that big,” Bucky grumbles, before suddenly recalling what he’d wanted to ask a few minutes earlier. “What happens if I don’t get sent to the right time? What if you send me forward, during an alien invasion? What the fuck do I do then?”

Tony blinks, then shrugs. “I don’t know. Use the bracelet? It’s quicker to charge here, so if you use it in the past -- oh, you can’t go in the future, it doesn’t work like that… -- anyway, if you use it in the past then it’s fine. But that won’t happen.”

Bucky drops it even though he doesn’t want to (something in his gut is telling him to have more caution about this), and asks instead what he needs to bring for the trip.

Tony goes digging through a pile of junk and pulls out a backpack with a circular patch of Thor’s hammer on the front. “Aha!” He shouts once he finds it. Bucky watches with amusement as Tony struggles to his feet, wiping sweat off his forehead and grease _on_ it. “I had it out last night. There’s a phone charger just in case, and a newspaper that’s only to be used in the event that you want to freak everyone out. Lemme -- actually, don’t worry about it, I’ll know about it by the time you come back if you do it.”

Bucky takes the backpack, and looks inside of it. There’s lots of unused space. He doesn’t even have to think about bringing clothes -- Bucky was a boy scout and then a soldier who carried extra, just-in-case shit all the time. And his gut is still screaming that he has to be prepared, so, yeah. Clothes.

**[...]**

Bucky doesn’t have a ton of belongings on Steve’s floor, but he has enough clothes to get by. He brings two t-shirts, a button up, and the blue peacoat he’d forgotten he even had. It was a gift from Steve; they’d been out and about, coming off the high of their proposal, and he’d seen it in a window. Five minutes and eighty dollars later, Bucky had a beautiful coat. They’d spent the night in the Tower for convenience's sake, and he’d left the heavy coat on the bed. Two pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks join them. A pair of jeans and khakis go in, too, because his Ma has always said he needs to have fancy dress no matter where he goes. Tony’s made no mention of where Bucky will end up physically, and with Bucky’s luck, he won’t be surprised if it’s a funeral or something equally serious. Maybe he’s reaching, but if Tony sees what he’s packing and makes fun of him, there has to be a reason. One Bucky can recite and not stumble over.

He rolls his eyes at himself as he packs a pair of headphones as well, and a small bag of coffee grounds. He doesn’t have a lotta cash in his wallet and isn’t about to ask Tony for any, so he figures why not. Starbucks is expensive and he’s probably going to have to get a ride on the subway.

On his way back up to Tony’s lab, he shoots off a text to Steve -- _Helping Tony with some time travel thing, plan to be home by dinner. Ly_.

Steve texts back immediately, _Good luck. I love you too_.

Something in Bucky’s stomach twists again, panic and dread and something screaming, this isn’t right! Bucky’s not in the business of ignoring that feeling, but then the elevator doors open and Tony’s pulling him towards the damn time machine.

**[...]**

With the backpack, it’s a tight fit. It sits by Bucky’s feet, and takes up more room than there actually is -- his clothes are being squished. _He’s_ being squished. It’s also dark, and together, Bucky feels more claustrophobic than he ever has in his entire life. He’s been shoved in a locker before, and it was a better experience than this. Back then, he’d been angry, though, ready to fight fucking Blake Holder for everything he’d ever done but especially shoving Bucky in a damn locker. Now he just feels like he’s going to die.

“You’re fine!” Tony shouts, just loud enough to be heard through the thick metal. “Try and calm your heart rate or it’ll explode on impact!”

“What the fuck!” Bucky shouts back, but listens anyway. He and Steve know many ways to calm down from a panic attack, and he employs them now. It takes several minutes, or at least it feels like it does, before Tony gives the all clear.

“See ya soon, Buck!” Tony calls, and it’s the last thing Bucky hears before the inside of the time machine flashes white and everything is gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Things:  
> 1) Minutemen is in fact a DCOM. It was released January 25th, 2008, and is about 3 teenage boys in high school who figure out time travel. They can only go back in time, and one of them sends his cat back as a test. The cat wears a leash or rope or something (it's been a while since I saw the movie) so it can be pulled back into the present. I have no idea how the cat tested the machine here honestly.  
> 2) If you follow Nik (princess-of-the-worlds) on tumblr, go reblog her [500 Followers Celebration here!](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/172314439099/ive-hit-500-followers-and-im-trying-to)  
> 3) Take [this survey](https://goo.gl/forms/3Jg5CFUm8tVSku0F2) to help me decide what side fics to write! It's anonymous and short. Thanks!  
> 4) CapRBB and CapBB are still taking over my life. I just wanted to get this out for you guys, but updates are gonna be slow unfortunately :/ Please comment -- it helps the creative juices flow!


	2. half the time im wondering if this is real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wakes up in an Italian forest in 1944. Unsurprisingly, things don't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi do you remember how I said the chapter titles would be quotes from It's Been A Long, Long Time? Uh yeah, I changed my mind. This title is from Kiss The Boy by Keiynan Lonsdale which is definitely a song you should listen to.
> 
> I wanna clarify, the bracelet that Bucky is wearing is NOT like Shuri's Kimoyo Beads. Hers are way more advanced. Tony's has three purposes -- track heartbeat, track where the wearer is, and get the wearer back home. Shuri's, as you saw, had many more uses. Also Shuri is just smarter than Tony is and that's a fact.
> 
> Also I still don't know how I'm gonna break up the chapters but this one is like 2.5k long and it's been a hot minute since I posted so you deserve it
> 
> Side note: INFINITY WAR KILLED ME DEAD BTW AS DID BLACK PANTHER, DEADPOOL 2, AND ANTMAN AND WASP!!! 
> 
> Warning for mentioned period-typical homophobia!

##  March 4th, 1944

Bucky blinks.

Where it was light, it’s now dark, the moon and stars the only source of light. Bucky knows that because he’s flat on his back, staring up at them. He swallows and it hurts; under him, he feels grass and sticks that poke him in all sorts of sensitive and ticklish places, like his earlobe. All around him are trees, green and lively ones that stretch on forever. The trunks are thick, the leaves sparse but healthy looking, and all together, they blend into the backdrop of more trees and dark sky easily. Bucky’s thankful, suddenly, for the fact that he put on his peacoat before getting into the time machine. It’s cold, so cold that Bucky shivers. The grass is wet. There’s a bug crawling on his -- 

Bucky reaches up and paws at his ear, wiping away the bug and the grass under it, his heart pounding like he’s ran a marathon. It’s fucking ridiculous but he can’t handle bugs anymore, not after the spiders he saw in Afghanistan.  _ It was too small to be a spider, _ he tells himself, “Stop it, Barnes. Get a hold of yourself.”

There’s a click, the distinctive sound of a gun, and all ease leaves Bucky so fast it makes him lightheaded. He tenses, breath caught in his throat, and he thinks,  _ what the fuck did you _ do _ , Tony? _

“Hold it right there, pal,” a deep voice says, then repeats it in...Italian?

“Sit up, and slow, or we’ll shoot,” another voice says. Neither of them are familiar, but the accents both say American. Bostonian and Californian. Huh.

Bucky raises his hands very slowly, and sits up  at the same speed . He says, “My name is James Buchanan Barnes, I’m American, and I’m really not trying to cause any trouble here….”

“Open your eyes,” a third voice demands, humor lacing the words. Bucky does so, not sure when they closed in the first place.  Right in front of him is Gabe Fucking Jones, a gun hoisted up and pointed right between Bucky’s eyebrows. At his sides are -- and Bucky’s brain literally cannot take it -- Dum Dum Dugan and...Steve.  _ Holy shit _ , he thinks, mouth dropping open, eyes glued to his fiance.

“He recognizes you, Cap,” Jim Goddamn Morita says from next to Dum Dum, gun up like Gabe’s. Dum Dum’s too, and even Steve. Bucky turns his head just a little, and yup, there’s Jacques Dernier next to Steve, which means Monty Falsworth is behind him. It only makes sense that Dernier and Falsworth also have their guns up, pointed at him. Also this means that Bucky was not sent to 2015, but probably fucking 1944.

Steve tilts his head at Bucky. “You say you’re American?” Yeah, he’s being looked at like he’s a stranger,  which hurts,  but hearing Steve’s voice is comforting. Bucky nods, not sure if he’s allowed to speak any more than he already has. “How did you get here? You’re not in regs, and no one is supposed to know we’re here.”

“I don’t even know where here is, man. And as to how I got here...would you believe me if I said a time machine?”

They share a look , and Bucky  _ hears  _ them collectively decide he’s crazy . “No,” says Steve once they all look back at Bucky. “How did you get here really?”

“Well, if you won’t believe me,” he starts, no idea where he’s going with it. The only word coming to mind is  _ bus _ , which is dumb because Bucky hasn’t ridden one in a long time.  And also, this is a forest. He’s pretty sure there’s no route out here.

“How about this, where are you from?” Morita asks, shortly.

“Brooklyn, born and raised,” Bucky replies, letting the accent seep out. He usually hides it for the benefit of non-New Yorkers who follow him on Twitter and the like, but it’s still there. “I have my ID in my wallet if you wanna see it?”

“Where is your wallet?” Dum Dum questions, tilting his chin up and then back down. It’s more intimidating than it has any right to be.

“In my backpack,” Bucky says, gesturing to it with his elbow. “You can -- if you don’t trust me, then you can look through it.”

“What’s in there?”

Bucky clears his throat, fighting bubbling panic. There’s nothing embarrassing, but his first reaction to someone going through his stuff is always an emphatic screech of panic. Also he thinks,  _ Oh god they’re gonna find a porno ma _ g, as if Bucky would bring that to his one day stay in 2015, even more as if Bucky has owned one of those since he was eighteen years old. “Clothes, coffee grounds in a bag, a newspaper and some things from the future.”

“What things?” The interrogation continues.

“A phone, a charger for the phone, and earbuds to listen to music with. The phone sorta looks like a really thin brick, and the charger and earbuds are like wires. The newspaper says the date that I came back from….”

The Howling Fucking Commandos talk briefly and decide that Steve will look through the backpack. Bucky cringes and yelps, “Don’t!” when Steve pulls the clothes out and almost throws them on the ground. Maybe that’s dumb but those are the only clothes Bucky has now, except the ones on his back which almost definitely have grass stains, and he wants to keep them clean. Steve’s told him that clothes in these days were still mostly hand washed. Bucky has never had to do that a day in his life and he doesn’t want to learn because Steve , of all people, had no consideration for his stuff.

Steve gives him a hard look, and then decides to go through his clothes one by one. The t-shirts are both ones he got at Wal-Mart because some habits never die. One is an image of Michael Jackson’s glove, twisted into the position of the Thriller.  [ The other ](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/ccc7df84-1d1e-4eea-84c7-45eb8af1f43a_1.cf430b1c28efad20df1d85292627eb0e.jpeg) is a light blue and white tie dye with a kitten on it, wearing a purple bandana on its forehead. It says “HUG LIFE”. The Commandos are interested in them both, and Bucky can see as they start to believe that maybe Bucky is from the future. His pants are boring by comparison, but not his socks and underwear. He has one pair of plain white socks, one with emojis that was a gag gift for Steve from  Grandma Becca that Bucky stole instantly, and one pair of deep blue woolen ones that Ma made for him one year. His underwear…. Bucky can’t help but wish he’d brought his plain underwear, because a set of boxer briefs with animated tacos, and boxers with animated pots of gold that he’d bought as a gag gift for Steve for St. Patrick’s Day (but somehow became his) are both embarrassing and fucking immature. The way the Commandos stare at them speaks more to them thinking he’s an idiot than to them believing that he’s from seventy years in the future.

He  expects to field several comments about them, or  maybe he wants to, but a sharp look from one of them and a poke in the back of the head with the barrel of a rifle shut him up. The bag of coffee grounds is next, and Steve takes note of the packaging right away. He sniffs it and gives the all clear, saying, “It’s definitely coffee.”

“More for us,” Falsworth says, and Dernier says something in reply. 

T he newspaper is next, but all Steve allows is that they confirm the date is far, far in the future. When the men complain about not reading the headlines, he says, “Don’t you know anything about time travel? If you know too much, it’ll be the end of the world. ”

When Steve takes out his phone, it isn’t examined quickly and thrown in the pile of Bucky’s clothes that, yes, are on the fucking grass because Steve is a dick, apparently. Steve turns it over in his hands, watching as it light up. The time and date are wrong, still saying it’s nine AM on September fifteenth.  H e jumps at the sudden light, squinting, and demanding, “How do you turn it down?”

B ucky bites down on his instinctive response of,  _ figure it out yourself, asshole _ . This is still Steve even if he’s acting completely different. “I don’t -- I don’t know how to explain how to do it. If you give it to me, I can -- “ The phone goes dark when it’s sure no one is going to use it, and the now-useless words die in Bucky’s throat.  A glance around reveals that none of the Howling Commandos look happy. Pleased? Interested? What word can he use to describe their suddenly heightened suspicion of him?

“What’d you do?” Dum Dum Dugan questions, and Bucky’s whole body tightens at the underlying threat.

“It, uh, it’s made to do that. It’s a touch screen, and when you don’t touch the screen, it’ll go to sleep. You see that button on the side? If you press it, it’ll turn back on, and if you press it again, it’ll go back to sleep.”

Steve considers this. Then he says, “Lower one of your hands.” Bucky does so, trying to go slow enough they won’t shoot him. Steve hands him the phone, motions for all the men to take several large steps back, and orders, “Show us.”

_ He thinks it’s a grenade, doesn’t he _ , Bucky thinks, exasperated as hell. He clicks the button on the side, and nothing happens except his eyeballs burning with how bright it is. Was it this bright when he left home that morning? Has it ever been this bright? A little dramatically, he thinks,  _ is this what staring at the sun is like? _ He hurriedly clicks the button again, plunging them and the trees back into darkness.

“It’s just a phone,” he says. “Mainly used for communicating.” And playing games until his fingers went stiff, and hoarding pictures of Steve with the cats, and liking every single post Peter puts on every single one of his social media accounts.

They all converge again, and the phone is taken away. Steve demands to find out how it works, so Bucky’s forced to sit there, both hands up again, and talk him through every single step of turning on the phone. He has to reveal that his passcode is 070418, which does nothing but make Steve glare at him, and the Commandos tease the holy hell out of both of them.

Then, because of fucking course, the first app Steve clicks on is the messages app.

“What’s that?” Gabe Jones asks, leaning just enough to see there are words on the screen.

Bucky answers for Steve, a sigh heavy in his words because he knows what there is to find in his texts and is positive they won’t like it. “It’s texts. Like, letters but really short and they take seconds to get to the other person.”

The men make interested noises. Somewhere when Bucky was coaching Steve through turning the brightness all the way down, he thinks the Commandos decided they don’t hate him. They haven’t been pretending not to be interested in his stuff since then, at least, so something has to have changed.

Steve’s already gotten the hang of tapping the screen (way too hard considering he’s a goddamn super soldier but Stark tech is pretty sturdy, thank god). He clicks on the very latest text conversation, which is Steve -- future Steve -- because of course it is. Outloud, he reads, “‘Helping Tony with some time travel thing, plan to be home by dinner. L-Y.’”

“L-Y?” Jim Morita repeats, almost a squawk. He pokes at Bucky roughly with the end of his gun. “I’ve never heard that code before. What does it mean?”

“It’s just an abbreviation. Means ‘love you’.”

“Why are you saying that to -- to this  _ Steve _ ?” Bucky clearly hears the implied,  _ he had better be your brother. _

_ Ugh _ , he thinks, cursing Tony again.  _ Of course he’s thrown back to Homophobia Hell. _

“I’m saying that to him because -- “

Suddenly Steve gasps and throws the phone. He shoots to his feet, and takes two steps back, then immediately moves back.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Jim Morita curses, chorused by the confusion of the other men.

Steve pays them no mind at all. He just stares Bucky in the eyes. “Who is that Steve?” He demands.

Bucky decides,  _ fuck it _ , and says, “It’s you. From the future.”

“I wouldn’t -- I would never -- “

“Well, you did and you have and you will again.” He has no idea if they’re talking about the pictures or the general and obviously gay affection or the sexts from whenever it was last they did that, but it doesn’t really matter. Whatever Steve saw is clearly about them being together. And Bucky is tired (it has to have been more than an hour at this point of having his hands up), and he knows for a fact that he won’t be able to hide that he’s ridiculously in love with Steve Rogers. 

“ I’m not -- “

Bucky groans. Yeah, he’s too tired for this. He can’t handle dealing with someone else’s identity crisis, even if it’s Steve’s crisis, even though he’s gotten really good at helping Steve through them. “Listen, okay, whatever you are or are not in the future doesn’t matter right now. All I care about is not dying, so we don’t have to focus on this, or talk about it, or whatever.”

The Howling Commandos look seriously confused. Monty Falsworth asks, “Captain, what’s -- “

Steve cuts him off. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t seem like a threat.”

“Okay, but what did you see that -- “ Jim Morita tries.

“I saw nothing,” Steve says sharply, and that’s that.

**[...]**

They let him put his hands down, and shove his stuff back in his bag. Steve pockets the phone. Bucky almost tells him in an undertone he doesn’t want anything deleted even if it would help Steve keep his safety -- then he realizes what he’s thinking and lets it go. Future Steve will send more dickpics, and all the pictures Bucky actually wants to keep aren’t incriminating. Well, except for -- fuck, nevermind. Bucky’s phone is possibly the gayest thing around, with all its pictures of Steve and himself.

Bucky’s trying not to think about what’ll happen if anyone other than Steve sees it.

The Commandos are a great distraction. In one moment, they’re friendly, pestering him with questions about the future (and especially future women). In the next, they’re telling him that they’re all heading back to base early and if he steps out of line once, they’ll shoot him.

It’s disorienting to say the least, made a million billion times worse by the fact that he’s so tired and they apparently have days of marching to get through, just so he can be interrogated by the big guns. Also, Steve has decided to ignore him.

Bucky shoulders his backpack, curses Tony Stark as best as he knows how, and focuses all of his attention on staying in line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So heh yeah, that's a chapter. Wowza.
> 
> Thank you to Cali for betaing, and no, I'll never tell you what Steve saw that freaked him out so bad.
> 
> Please comment, I will love you forever. Feel free to ask questions, but just know I can't always be up front with the answers for spoilers reasons


End file.
